Online Businesses Urged To Bolster Cybersecurity Practices

The Department of Commerce has proposed new cybersecurity standards to protect Internet businesses and services providers that aren’t part of the U.S. critical infrastructure sector.

A report released Wednesday by the department’s Internet Policy Task Force offers a range of cybersecurity proposals for companies in the Internet economy, including a plan to offer businesses financial incentives to combat security threats.

The report also suggests the development of a standard approach to minimizing vulnerabilities and plans to foster public-private sector coordination on the education and research around cybersecurity threats as ways to establish firmer cybersecurity within companies that control information and transactions in the Internet domain.

The report–“Cybersecurity, Innovation and the Internet Economy”–is to Internet businesses what a recent sweeping proposal by the White House for how to create cybersecurity policy is to U.S. critical infrastructure. That one focuses more on securing industries at the core of the U.S. economy and way of life, including energy, financial services, and health.